Buchanan County EMS reports overdoses doubling from 2020

Buchanan County EMS reports overdoses doubling from 2020

St.

Joseph's streets thanks for joining us.

I'm alan van zandt.and i'm jodie o'brien.

Emergency responders are seeing a rash of overdoses due to fentenyl and staff at a local addiction center say they are being overwhelmed here's kq2's kilee thomas with the story <<kilee thomas reports:st.

Joseph's war on fentanyl is far from over"it's a public health crisis."

"we have an enormous problem."

And it's claiming more lives everyday.

"i was just informed that a young man lost his life today to an overdose.

First of all, my heart goes out to his family."

The problem in st.

Joseph is evident calls have skyrocketed over the past month stores, we've had them in residences, we've had them in the streets, we've had them in parks.

It could be anywhere and it could be anybody."

63 confirmed overdoses in march...doubling the amount from march 2020.

Those numbers coming from buchanan county emsan alarming increase from january to march this year january...nearly doubling in february and march than the year priorit's a rate leaving area treatments centers overwhelmed "it's more than we've ever seen."

Just last week head of st kolbe puckett center of healing went to social media to sound the alarm on fentanyl -- an opioid 50-100x stronger than heroin "i'm exhausted in every sense of the word.

I'm exhausted."

"he's calling me and this person's calling me.

He's running to this area and i'm running to that area."st kolbe-puckett handing out well over 500 boxes of the life- saving medication narcantrying to get the community involved in combating st.

Joseph's battle with opioid addiction "yesterday i had a lady come by and she picked up like 110 (narcan), she's completely out of the narcan."

I think it's only going to get worse."

Health experts say they don't know why fentaynl is on the rise-but they're committed to fighting it.sot: steve groshong, director of operations for buchanan experts say local hospitals and treatments center need to come together and form a plan to deal with these overdoses head on and do it fast or things will get much worse"our community is going to suffer and we're going to continue to have more people die."

Those dedicating their lives to saving others from drug addiction say the problem stems far deeper than what's on the streets stigma surrounding addiction making it harder to fight "we have people that come in and overdose on it and they're released from the hospital and they use it again.

They're just sick.

It's not that they're stupid or worthless, they're sick.

They're physically addicted to it."

"a mother and father lost a child and who are you to judge that child?"

Reporting in st.

Joseph, kilee thomas happening now-st kolbe puckett is holding another community outreach event at the civic center